No one had ever seen the man's eyes in all the years he had been a resident of the state hospital. He wore his grey cap pulled down low, navigating about the countryside by tilting his head back, inspecting things over the bridge of his nose. This elevated stance lent his over six foot frame an illusion of being larger than life. His emaciated body was shrouded in grey, identical with the clothing worn by other institution trusties.
He moved his toothless mouth up and down; his chin nearly touching the tip of his nose. It was nervousness, this mouth movement, brought on whenever he was excited or fantasizing about his life's purpose-sex.
The young boy he was following did not know he was there. If he had known he would have gone screaming off the railroad tracks, and up the hill to the housing project. The boys who lived in the village were afraid of the man. They recognized evil, but knew if they banded together they could lick him, or at the very least, hold him at bay. Alone, they did not stand a chance against him.
The most daring or less chicken-hearted of boys give their monsters names, and so it was with the village boys. They called him Queenie. He had earned the name the day they caught him spying on them at bare-assed beach. It was their private place, and they thought no one knew about it until they discovered the strange man masturbating behind a bush. They threw rocks at him and he moved silently away.
That was one of the things about Queenie that made him so strange-he was always so quiet. When he so often stalked the river road with his pack of stray dogs, an ominous silence went with him.
The dogs were with him now, darting in and out of the dusty brush alongside the road, coming out to be certain he was still there, sneezing once, and jumping back in. Occasionally the man would rub the toe of his boot between the hind legs of one of the dogs. When he did this the dog would pause and begin to salivate. It was just the man's way of teasing the dogs, making them believe there were better things in the world than chasing elusive smells.
Silently, the man slipped into the bushy median between the road and the tracks. The dogs knew he had other things on his mind and they sat down to wait. He could see the boy clearly and his eyes bore from the blackness of his cap. His mouth moved, succulently. Beads of perspiration lined his wrinkled upper lip, and his breath came in short, anticipatory gasps.
The boy, still unaware of the danger, teetered on the steel rail. He had been successful at this balancing act all the way from town, only slipping once when a hedgehog wandered out on the gravel outlining the tracks. The animal made so much noise the boy thought a man was coming out after him. The man he thought about was Queenie, but he did not say the name, nor even think it. That would be bad luck.
The boy heard a noise. He tested his imagination for a moment, and when he was certain it was nothing he went on. In two hundred yards he would be below the village. If only he had not slipped off back there he would have a new record. No one had ever made it this far before.
He heard the snapping noise again. Richey held his breath and strained his ears...nothing. It was only the wind, he thought, but he clutched at his sides for protection, and his heart was no longer in the game.
"Hell," he said aloud. "I'll try it again the next time I'm stupid enough to spend my bus money on candy."
He stepped off the rail and lengthened his stride, hitting every second tie. If he stepped on the gravel the noise would cover things coming from behind.
He did not look back. That would be bad luck, too. Worse than bad luck, turning around would be the catalyst for more dreadful things. Whenever he started to glance behind, his imagination would take over all his actions, and it was not too long after that that he would begin to run. Once he was running the terror within built and grew until he was no longer in control of himself. Later, when he was safe from his fears, he was always disgusted with himself for being so foolish. He wasn't going to let it get to him this time.
The man was very close when Richey left the rail. He could see the smooth, childish flesh of the boy's cheek, and the white fuzz that stood from his pale, defenseless arms. He yearned to reach out and stroke the boy's face. He wanted to kiss this child's lips, and run his hot tongue down the narrow chest to his stomach. He knew of the softness of virgin bellies.
All the residents of the state hospital hadn't always been men. There had been a time, seven years past, when he had first tasted youth. The boy had not been as immature as the one he stalked now, but he had been young enough to excite the man's palate, and develop in him the tantalizing hunger for the delicacy of youth.
His need for virginity was precipitated by that one encounter. Only the rape of a child's body would satisfy him. "They" had virtue, modesty, shame, and the decencies he did not see in himself. He needed to experience these feelings of purity, and the only way he could get them was to take their's.
He knew there would be no hair between Richey's legs. Visions of a tender, bare bottom consumed the man, and he grew rigid, experiencing his second orgasm of the day.
Richey smelled the man. It was a strange smell, the same he had discovered the morning he sneaked into his parents' bedroom. The smell had both excited and frightened him, as it did now.
The grey man realized he could get no closer without being detected. He would have to do it now. He recalled the many times he had dreamed about this moment. He would grab the boy by his scrawny neck, pull him into the woods, hold his hand over the voiceless mouth, and then...he had never carried the drama to its conclusion before. He knew once he had finished he would have to kill the boy. That could be wonderful, too.
Just as the man tensed, preparing to leap out between two well-spaced bushes, a car came up the road behind him. The boy heard the vehicle and raced it to the next telephone pole. As he bolted forward his stride opened and he struck every third tie. The noise of the car grew as it gained on him. As it passed, the tone changed, and Richey had won the race.
The sound quickly faded and Richey was left lonely. He tried to settle his heavy breathing, and heard a rustling sound. It was not much of a noise, but he recognized the sound branches make when being pushed aside. Casually, because he did not want to frighten himself, he glanced over his shoulder. Queenie was stepping out of the woods.
Richey stiffened, and his breath turned to stone. He did not think he had the strength to run, but he was wrong. He had never run faster. A hundred yards down the tracks...a turn to the right, up the path through the woods for another sixty yards...across the short, grassy field that encircled most of the village. Richey ran, cursing himself for being alone. He would never do that again.
Queenie knew it was hopeless. When the boy began to run his dreams were suspended. He wished he was faster. There would be another time, though. The boys were always wandering about. Most of the time they were in a group, but occasionally, like today, one of them came alone. His day would come.
The village boys hated Queenie more than they feared him. He was their vocation. Whenever they grew bored, when there was nothing to do in or around the housing project, one of them would suggest they look for Queenie. He was never too difficult to find. He haunted the derelict old mill, the abandoned poor farm, the village's dump, or the murky banks of the river. If they were patient, and searched quietly, they always found him.
Queenie never spoke. He never even made a sound the time they found him sleeping in the old mill. It had been one of those hot summer days, when all energy was spent, and the boys had run out of baseball talk, "kick the can", making fun of each other, and telling dirty jokes. They thought about B.A.B., but their swimming place was too far away. Lenny suggested they try the old mill. The cellar was damp and smelled of mildew and death, but it was, at least, cool. When they arrived they had not expected to find Queenie there ahead of them.
PeeWee slipped down through one of the floor's holes before the others could get into the basement using the traditional entrance. He saw Queenie stretched out on a piece of concrete, and as he told it later, "nearly wet my pants." He got to the other boys in time and they all crept to a strategic position, and looked down on their monster. He was asleep, they were sure of that. There was no way at all they were going to let this chance pass them by.
Richey said he had to take a crap, and that gave them the idea they needed. They searched the sides of the road until one of them found a bag. Lenny gave it to Richey with orders to fill it up. When he handed it back to Lenny the sides of the bag were browning, already beginning to swell as the dampness soaked through.
They crept to the opening. Queenie had not moved. Lenny held the bag out and dropped it. It struck Queenie just below his chin and burst. The boys stayed long enough to see the bag explode, and then ran outside, tearing up the road in a gleeful panic. They laughed and slapped each other on the back when they had reached the safety of the village.
Queenie scraped the excrement from his chin and neck. He could hear the boys in their excitement as the sounds dissipated. He did not mind what they had done-he rather liked it. A vision came to mind-a boy standing naked above him, defecating on his face. He spent the rest of the afternoon masturbating.
After Richey ran into the village, all wide-eyed and out of breath, he found his friends sitting together by the baseball field.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Nickey. "You look like you saw Frankenstein or somethin'".
"I did! I saw that God-damned bastard Queenie! He tried not to cry.
"What'd he do to you?" asked another.
"He chased me!" Richey said. He stepped between Lenny and Nickey as he spoke. They were the biggest and offered the most protection.
"Big deal," said Lenny. "He didn't get ya, did he?"
"No...but he almost did. If that car hadn't come along when it did he woulda' got me for sure."
"We gotta fix that big fairy once and for all," Nickey said, looking at Lenny.
They agreed that something would have to be done and they headed for the river.
Queenie was bored with the dogs. He had had them so often they were no longer sexually appetizing. All creatures need their own kind, and he wanted his. He smiled to himself as his mouth worked. His large, broganed feet were crossed at the ankles. He lay on the dock, his hands behind his head. The sun felt hot, but he liked it that way. He felt good. This was his favorite spot. He heard the water gently slapping against the piers below. Queenie promised himself another week would not pass before he would get what he wanted.
The boys looked upstream and saw him lying on the dock. They were too far away to be certain, but no one else ever lay there. It took them only a minute to reach a decision.
They walked up the river road to the spot where the loading dock first crossed over their heads and then up the hill to the state hospital. Cautiously, they moved out on the bank. Three boys shinnied the dead tree leaning from the bank to the dock. The others stood and watched.
Stealthily, they approached Queenie. The man seemed to be staring at them through his two huge, blackened nostrils. When they were as close as anyone dared they paused and looked at each other for support. Lenny was at the man's shoulders, Nickey stood near his waist, and Richey had the feet. Queenie smelled like something had died. Together, they rolled him over the edge of the dock. Queenie spread his arms as he fell. The boys were already running when they heard the splash. They met in the road and laughed all the way home.
Queenie had never learned to swim. Panic struck him as he went under. He grasped for the pier but it was too slimy. A vision of youthful flesh drifted from him-his lungs burned. "They" had touched him. At least he had that.
Quietly, he drowned.
Terry Isham has been teaching in the Orient and Europe for the past ten years. He writes, "though I have run across a few interesting situations while overseas that may make for good reading, I find that the only stories I care to write take place in the U.S. A wet dream of the great American novel controls my writing appetite, but occasionally I escape my desire and write a short story."
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